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The Bible emphatically tells us that Christ is the Head. One day God will head up everything in the universe under Christ. Today the universe has not come under the headship of Christ yet, and everything is in a state of confusion. But one day God will head up everything under the headship of Christ. God ordained that Christ should exercise headship over all things, but today that headship must first be exercised in the church, and then through the church the headship will be exercised over all things. Today Christ is the Head of the church. Eventually, He will be the Head over all things. The church is God's means of enlarging Christ, and this enlargement will go on until He fills the entire universe. The church is "the fullness of the One who fills all in all" (Eph. 1:23). If the headship of Christ is not established in the church, it cannot be established in the universe.
What do Christ being the Head of the church and the church being the Body of Christ mean? They mean that all authority is in Him. All authority is in Him because all life is in Him. The whole Body is consummated in Him; He is the fountainhead of the life of the Body. The Body has no life of its own. "God gave to us eternal life and this life is in His Son" (1 John 5:11). Even after eternal life is given to us, it still rests in His Son. The Son does not part with it; He retains it in Himself. "He who has the Son has the life" (v. 12). This verse does not say, "He who has the life has the life." We do not possess life as life; only by possessing the Son do we have life. A Christian receives his life from the Lord. Yet this life can never be separated from the Lord. A believer is related not just to life. By being related to this life, a believer is related to the Son of God. This life makes us members of the Body of Christ. This life relationship rules out the possibility of being separated from the Head, because our life is derived from the Head. The flow of life in us continually depends upon our relationship to the Son. As soon as there is any obstruction in our fellowship with Him, the life in us is immediately blocked. He is the Head of the Body, and life can flow freely to us only when He is in full control.
The power of our existence is derived from Christ. This is why we cannot do anything independently. Only the Lord is our Head, and only He has the authority to direct the moves of the members of His Body. In this age of lawlessness, any suggestion of the need of authority is unwelcome; but if we are to understand and enter into the life of the Body, we must know the authority of the Head. My hand can do nothing without direction from the head. The head must command if the members are to move. Christ is the life of the Body, and Christ is also the authority in the Body. All the moves of the members of His Body must be under the direction of the Head. For Christ to be the Head means that He has the authority in the Body. We are not the head, and we do not have the authority. The only thing we should do is submit to the authority of the Lord. If we seek to know the life of the Body, a question will immediately arise: Do we bow to the absolute authority of the Lord? We will be challenged at the outset by the headship of Christ. We cannot say, "But..." We cannot say, "I think..." We can only bow to His sovereignty. We need to realize that if we are going to be members of the Body, we cannot be the Head. We cannot dictate, choose, or even desire. The Bible says that we should follow the Lord. What does it mean to follow the Lord? Following means coming after. The Lord is the One who decides our pathway. We do not have any ground for our own choice. The Body's only duty toward the Head is obedience and submission without any opinion, idea, or proposal. In the Body of Christ, no individual's idea or proposal counts; all these have to be cast down. We should only submit to the authority of the Head. We should just listen to His command and do as He says.
An acceptance of Christ as Head involves a repudiation of all other heads. Christ alone is the Head of the Body; no one else can be the head. You cannot be the head, nor can anyone in the church be the head, because there can only be one Head in the Body; there cannot be two heads. Only Christ is the Head. Therefore, all of us have to obey Christ. Today we see many human methods and ordinances abounding in the church. How wrong this is! Human plans and human decisions are against the headship of Christ. If Christ is my Head, then I will not dare to please myself or others; I must seek to please Him alone. "God has made Him both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:36). Note that God has not set up Christ as Savior but as Lord. Paul first saw Christ as Lord and then as Savior. When he was apprehended on the road to Damascus, his first question was, "Who are You, Lord?" (9:5). Only Christ is the Head in the church; there is no other head. If we desire to live in the Body of Christ, we have to learn to submit to the authority of our Lord Jesus. Anyone who cannot submit, who always expresses his opinions and proposals, and who insists on being the head has never seen the Body. Once a man realizes that he is a member in the Body, there will surely be a feeling of submission in him because submission is a law of the Body.
Paul spoke of "holding the Head, out from whom all the Body, being richly supplied and knit together by means of the joints and sinews, grows with the growth of God" (Col. 2:19). Since Christ is the Head of the Body, we have to hold the Head. Holding the Head is acknowledging that only Christ is the Head; it is coming absolutely under His authority. We can be joined to the brothers and sisters only when we hold the Head. The members of the Body are fitted together and able to live the Body life through holding the Head. Our relationship to the Head determines our relationship to the other members. All the questions regarding our relationship with the brothers and sisters can only be solved when we come under the absolute authority of the Lord. Unless we recognize the headship of Christ in the Body, we will never have a perfect fellowship with the other members, because it is our common relationship to Him that causes us to be related to one another. We may look different outwardly, but the Christ within us is the same. This is why we can fellowship with one another and be one with each other. Apart from Christ, we have no means of fellowship. When we do not hold the Head, our fellowship becomes invalid. The basis of our fellowship is our mutual holding of the Head. When we all hold the Head, we will hold to one another, and our relationship with the Body will be proper.
If we hold the Head, we cannot have a special relationship, feeling, or fellowship with any individual or group of individuals. There is no room for our own preferences in the Body. We have no direct communion one with another; it is all through the Head. For instance, when my left hand hurts, my right hand comes to its aid immediately. The right hand does this because both the left hand and the right hand are under the direction of the head. The mutual relationship of the members passes through the Head first. What does it mean to form parties? Forming parties means that a few Christians have a direct relationship with one another and are detached from the authority of the Head. They communicate with each other directly, but their communication has not passed through the Head. They have a special relationship with one another, but their relationship has not passed through the Head.
We must not move in relation to another member except under the direction of the Lord. If He asks us to do something for a fellow member and the fellow member does not appreciate it, we do not need to worry since all of our dealings are with the Head. If we hold the Head, getting all our direction from Him and doing all as unto Him, we do not need to worry about the consequences.
If we hold the Head, we cannot have different interpretations of Scripture. Differences arise when someone is not holding the Head, because He cannot possibly say one thing to one member and something else to another. If differences arise, we must not try to straighten them out by discussion; rather, we should just recognize Christ as the Head. In the church we all must hold the Head, whether it involves the understanding of the truth, the handling of business, or any other matter. Christ is the unique authority in the Body. The place of all the members is to hold the Head and to acknowledge Him as the unique and supreme authority in all things. If we let the cross deal with our natural life, we will find no difficulty in our relationship with the fellow members of the Body.
